The Fourth Incident
by InsideMyBrain
Summary: Madeline always feels overshadowed by Amelia. So when another "incident" occurs, she's definitely not happy. FACE family, fem!Canada & fem!America. Cover image not mine.


I jump out of the car and run up the steps to our house. I'm the first one out, Papa and Dad being tired after the baseball game. Amelia seems unusually morose, I don't know why. Just half an hour ago, at the game, she was screaming and cheering like mad.

"You alright?" I ask her once she reaches the door.

"Yeah!" She replies cheerfully, briefly flashing me a smile before turning her thoughtful gaze back to her phone.

Papa unlocks the door and Amelia and I step in first, kicking off our shoes. She heads upstairs, while I flop down on our couch.

Kuma comes to greet me. I pick him up, hugging the white cat close to me. "Did you miss us?" I coo.

He looks at me and cocks his head. He always has such a questioning look in his eyes, like he doesn't know who I am. I can just imagine him saying, "Who?" Just like everyone. He meows, and I put him down reluctantly.

"Where is Amèlie?" Papa asks, sitting down in an armchair. "She said she has something to tell us."

Dad shrugs. He's busy in the kitchen, making tea.

Amelia comes down the stairs, rather nervously. One hand clutches her phone, the other fiddles with the star-shaped clip that pins back her blonde waves. She perches herself on the end of the couch, fidgeting.

"What did you want to say?" Dad asks. Amelia takes a deep breath.

"Well, you know at the stadium, they had wifi, right? When I connected to it, I got messages from Qader."

"Oui...?" Papa asks, seeming a little confused.

"He said, uh," Amelia continues, "That he broke up with his girlfriend and... He asked how much I charge for a blowjob."

"Quoi?!" Papa screeches. Dad drops a teacup. Personally, I'm not surprised. Shit like this has been happening ever since Amelia hit puberty.

"When? Just now?" Dad immediately questions.

"No, they were from yesterday, I just got them now."

"What did you say? Did you say anything?"

I resist the urge to sigh. Amelia needs to stop being such a slut.

Okay, that was mean. But let's count the instances here. Fuckin' four, including this one.

The first one was four years ago, almost exactly four years ago. Amelia was in seventh grade. That's how far back this goes.

I knew something was wrong. Shouting, crying, door-slamming, I heard it all from the confines of my room. Then Dad took me on a walk, and told me. How she friended some classmates on Facebook. How they asked her inappropriate questions, and asked for pictures. How she sent one, just to shut them up, and how they used that one to blackmail her.

It was illegal. Extortion, I think. Whatever it was, they were never charged. A fierce debate raged in our house for months, a course of action never being decided. At one point, Papa said we would have to go to court. But we never did.

Crying snaps me back to the present. Of course. Amelia's crying, and the interrogation continues.

"What you were talking about before was all perfectly innocent?" Dad presses.

"Yeah, we were just talking about school." Amelia wipes her eyes. "Then he said he had a girlfriend, and I backed off."

"And then a few months later, he says he's suddenly single and asks for a blowjob?"

"He asked me how much I _charge._ "

I touch the ends of my two pigtails. While it's not pleasant to be viewed as a prostitute, I would love it if guys paid as much attention to me as they do Amelia. If I got that message, I would roast him so hard he wouldn't even allow himself to look at any girl for months. I may look quiet and unassuming, but I can be a bitch, given the opportunity.

Back to Amelia, though, she really needs to organize herself. Stop wearing those slutty clothes and talking to fuckboys online, why don't you? Oh, and wearing a bomber jacket over the shortest, most fucking transparent crop top I've ever _seen_ does not even remotely follow the dress code! Jesus Christ!

"What do we do?" Papa asks. "Do we tell the principal?"

Please tell the principal. Please let him get kicked out of school.

"I'm not letting my daughter go to a school with creeps like that." Dad has set his ultimatum.

"No, don't." Amelia cries. "He's the favourite, they'll never kick him out. They'll kick us out."

"Then we'll send you to a different school. As long as you're away from him."

I cross my fingers. Maybe they'll let us go to public school this year. Maybe the local high school, where my best friend, Romana, and my crush, Gilbert, go. Maybe this can be a good thing.

"No, I like this school! It's where all my friends go!"

Yeah, but not me, bitch. Does anyone ever think of me?"

"Amèlie, I don't feel comfortable with you going back there, if he's there. Do you have any classes with him?"

She nods. My parents sigh.

"I- I don't know what it is with people from that culture-"

"Amelia!" Dad says. She continues nonetheless.

"But they need to realize, they're in America now. Women won't bend to their will like they do there."

Amelia can be such a racist fuck sometimes.

"Just 'cause I don't wear a hijab-"

 _"Amèlie!"_

She falls silent.

"Stop. Arrète. Don't talk like that."

"Francis is right. Race has nothing to do with it."

That may be true, but three out of the four incidents have involved Muslims, so that's not really helping Dad's case.

The one time when her harasser wasn't of colour was three years ago. She was in eighth grade, I was in sixth. There was a boy in her class, who was just being a jerk. He bugged her about her sexuality, what race she preferred.

 _Do you like dick or pussy?_

 _Black dick or white dick?_

 _What about my dick?_

You _are_ a dick, is what I would have said to him. But no, she ran straight to Papa and Dad. And again, no serious punishment was inflicted. He just got a lecture from the vice-principal.

I was there when Papa phoned her. She was being kind of bitchy about the whole thing, so I couldn't blame Papa for being pissed. But the very last straw was when she brought _it_ up.

 _Well, you know... Amelia's_ condition-

 _What about it?_

 _It hinders her from being able to tell if someone is joking. You know, social stuff._

 _Don't tell me about my own daughter's autism! If she didn't have autism, this kid would still be harassing her!_

And that's the part I've been leaving out.

Yes, she has autism. Not the super-severe kind, where you can't talk and you act like a small child. She's very low on "the spectrum," as it's called. But she does have it, and it does hinder her.

She's crying again, and Papa's hugging her. I feel like an intruder on their moment. I know I'm just as much a part of this family as she is, but it always seems like I'm being left out.

"It's such an insult!"

"Oui, it is. He is a piece of crap."

Eventually, she leaves to go have a shower. The running water doesn't fully cover the sound of her sobs.

I try to make myself feel something, anything at all, but there's nothing there. Am I glad this is happening? Do I hate it? But I feel nothing. I don't even feel remorseful for feeling nothing. It's like I know I'm a shitty person, and I accept it.

I guess I'll just have to live with this emptiness, pretending everything is fine until the fifth incident.


End file.
